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By Victoria Goodman

High atop a hill overlooking the Patapsco River the historic Gary Memorial United Methodist Church stands vigil still over the remnants of the once thriving mill town of Daniels. The last remaining intact vestige of the town’s working-class community, the granite church on Standfast Hill, bears witness to the passage of time and a dwindling congregation now struggling to keep its doors open.

Notable both historically and architecturally, Gary Memorial United Methodist Church is one of Howard County’s finest landmarks. Built in 1879 by James Albert Gary as a memorial to his father who acquired the mill town’s manufacturing company in 1858, the church was one of four that once served the people of the now extinct village.  

The church is integral within Howard County’s history and its structure is notable for its eclectic late nineteenth century architectural features that blend local granite block with Gothic Revival and Medieval French styles.  Fine brick work can be found throughout, and its beautiful, unpretentious interior harkens to a simpler place and time. Many of the town’s early residents rest in an adjoining graveyard dotted by memorial markers-- some intact, others deteriorating, some lost to time and vandalism.

Gary Memorial’s sturdy wooden pews were once filled to capacity but now seat only a few each Sunday. Having survived the town’s demise in 1968 and the devasting 1972 flood unscathed, the church’s future is fragile. Even though the spirit of its small congregation is as steadfast as the hill it stands on, without additional revenue in the near term the stalwart guardian of the mill town’s past may soon become a memory.